Hubble Spots A 13.4 Billion Year Old Galaxy, Shattering Cosmic Distance Record

The Hubble Space Telescope broke its own distance record by measuring GN-z11, a faint galaxy that's 13.4 billion years old, the Hubble team announced Thursday. The observation sets a new cosmic distance record and takes astronomers one step closer to the first galaxies of the universe. 

Since the light generated by the galaxy travelled for billions of years to reach Hubble, the telescope is, in effect, seeing into the earliest years of the universe.